New Pitt-Greensburg Life Sciences building expected to open early next year

Jeff Himler | Monday, August 29, 2022 6:35 p.m.

Kristina Serafini | Tribune-Review

Jacob Minnis, an employee with Cost, works on stone on the front of the Life Sciences Building Monday at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. The building, which will house the school’s nursing and life sciences programs, is scheduled to be completed in November.

Crews are busy constructing a new Life Sciences building at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg that will provide expanded, updated facilities for growing programs.

The two-story, 32,000-square-foot building is expected to cost about $19.5 million and is scheduled to open with a ribbon-cutting ceremony early next year.

The Pitt-Greensburg nursing program will relocate from McKenna Hall to the first floor of the new building. The second floor will house new laboratories, augmenting science facilities in adjoining Smith Hall.

Pitt-Greensburg’s nursing program began six years ago and graduated its first class — eight students — two years ago. Since then, graduating classes have grown to more than 30 students.

There are about 170 nursing students enrolled on the campus. That compares to roughly 160 students majoring in biology, which previously had been the largest Pitt-Greensburg program in enrollment.

The campus nursing major is “a real important program, not just for us, but for the community,” said Robert Gregerson, the Pitt-Greensburg university president. “Everyone is clamoring for nurses.”